I’m currently challenging myself to stick with a $70 grocery budget for our family of five. This includes almost all of our breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners + most household products (toiletries, laundry soap, etc.).

Note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links and we will be compensated if you click through and sign up. Read our disclosure policy here.

Kaitlynn had her end of school Awards Day all morning on Tuesday morning, so I didn’t get any freezer cooking done. But I did find some great deals at Kroger!

I was going to do the Buy 4, Get $4 Off Deal, but I only had 3 ALL laundry detergents and our store didn’t have the the razors I was going to buy, so I hopped onto KrogerKrazy.com on my phone in the store to see if there were any new deals that had popped up since the last time I checked.

And low and behold, there was a hot tip about how Kraft barbecue sauce was marked down (for one day only!) to just $0.25 each when you buy 4 participating items — no coupons needed!

So, of course, I grabbed some of them up! I decided to get 5 bottles because I think that will last us for at least 3-5 months.

Note to self: Always remember to check KrogerKrazy.com when I’m in-store so I don’t miss a hot deal tip!

I’m currently challenging myself to stick with a $70 grocery budget for our family of five. This includes almost all of our breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners + most household products (toiletries, laundry soap, etc.).

In fact, it would be fascinating to see how many of these I have made over the years. It’s probably an insane number! 🙂

Fun fact: This was a recipe that Jesse’s family loved and I love that it’s become one of our family favorites. These make such great quick lunches or snacks!

The freezer is filling up!! We currently have 9 dinners, 3 breakfasts, and 2 desserts in there. I’m aiming to have 30 meals in here by the end of June. We’ll see!

Kroger has been having fantastic Saturday only sales in recent weeks.

I was thrilled with the butter and water sale — two items that we use a lot!

You could buy up to 5 packs of butter for $1.99 each with the digital coupon — so, of course, I bought 5! We will stick these in the freezer and they should hopefully last us for two months (we usually use about 2 to 2 1/2 sticks of butter per week).

And I bought 3 cases of water — I found out later that the 32-packs were included in this sale. But they weren’t marked as such at our store, so oh well! We usually wash and re-use water bottles at least a few times before tossing them so this should (hopefully) last us all summer and will be so handy for time at the pool and road trips and other summer adventures!

We had our Community Group (four other families) over for an Ice Cream Social. We provided bowls, cups, napkins, and spoons and chocolate syrup and cookies. Two families brought toppings and two families brought ice cream and we had a great get-together that was super simple and inexpensive for everyone!

Silas made some Homemade Oobleck last night and the kids had so much fun playing with it. This would be a great frugal fun activity for summer.

This morning, Silas and I made Homemade Pizza Dough on Facebook Live. I had planned to make a double batch and freeze half of it, but I realized that we were getting down the bottom of the flour jar. So we just made one pizza crust.

This boy loves helping me in the kitchen — and he just better and better at cooking and baking!

I hadn’t made dough on our new kitchen table until today. I wasn’t sure how it would clean up, but I’m so happy to say that it wiped right off. I continue be so happy that we chose this table for our kitchen. I just love how sturdy it is and how easily it cleans up!

Silas helped me knead the dough and I taught him what dough should feel like when it’s ready.

We couldn’t find our pizza pan and I’m guessing that somehow it disappeared in the move or that Kaitlynn may have confiscated it for some craft project and I just haven’t discovered it yet (she’s always making all sorts of crafts and projects and I try to encourage it as much as possible, thought I do sometimes have to tell her that my kitchen pans aren’t up for grabs — especially if they are going to get destroyed in the process of her experimentation! ;))

Silas made the pizza entirely by himself — from rolling out the dough, to putting on the sauce, to thawing the chicken from the freezer, to grating the cheese, to pre-heating the oven.

I only had to give a tiny bit of coaching! I am so excited with just how capable my kids are becoming and how much all those years of letting them help me in the kitchen had paid off!

Silas’ finished pizza! This will be our dinner tonight. Yum!

You can watch us make the Pizza Dough live in the video above.

This Week’s Super Simple Menu Plan

This menu is subject to change a little if I find some great deals or markdowns! 🙂

Whatever I Find on Sale/Marked Down (That works for snacks!), Ice Cream (our friends left the rest of the ice cream at our house from the ice cream social!), Yogurt, Cereal, Fruit, Popcorn

Dinners

Monday — Homemade Chicken Salsa Pizza, Apples
Tuesday — Spaghetti Casserole, Peas, Naan
Wednesday — Meatballs, Corn on the Cob, Homemade French Fries
Thursday — Haystacks
Friday — Picnic at Kathrynne’s School — we’re supposed to bring enough of a side dish to feed 15 people — I’m thinking of doing Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes since those always seem popular at potluck style dinners and I have all those potatoes that I got marked down. I may change my mind depending upon what markdowns I find.
Saturday — Takeout Pizza (we’re having friends over for dinner but we’re going to be gone all day long so I’m keeping it crazy simple!)
Sunday — Snack-y Dinner (fend for yourself — cereal, leftovers, etc.)

I’m currently challenging myself to stick with a $70 grocery budget for our family of five. This includes almost all of our breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners + most household products (toiletries, laundry soap, etc.).

I’m planning to make a double batch of Southwest Rollups tomorrow and then I’ll share more about my freezer cooking this week in tomorrow’s post (and show you an update on how our freezer is filling up!)

Remember those potatoes I got marked down? I turned half a bag of them into Oven-Baked Crinkle Fries — which we all LOVED! I made them similar to my Sweet Potato Fries recipe, only I used Olive Oil and then sprinkled them with salt and garlic pepper.

(My friend, Melissa, gave me this Crinkle Cutter and it is the best EVER. It makes chopping and eating veggies and fruits so much more fun and interesting!)

Thursday’s ALDI Shopping Trip — $32.42

1 gallon water –$0.79

3 lb. boneless chicken breasts — $5.99

2 cans refried beans — $0.75 each

1 bag onions — $0.99

Iceberg lettuce — $0.85

1 bag of mini cucumbers — $1.99

Milk — $2.69

2 bags of frozen peas — $0.95

Baby lettuce — $1.89

Baby carrots — $0.99

Radishes — $0.49

Extra Virgin Olive Oil — $2.99

2 bags frozen broccoli — $1.19 each

Pasta Sauce — $0.99

1 can black beans — $0.55

1 can diced tomatoes — $0.45

3 boxes of Mac & Cheese — $0.33 each

Pure Cane Sugar — $1.95

Total with tax — $32.42

Total spent so far this week: $68.60

Want to hear more of why I shop at Kroger more often than ALDI + all sorts of other interesting tidbits, including what I do when a troll shows up on FB live? Watch the video above.

Make $0.50 in a Minute!

READER TIP: “Just wanted to give you a heads up. You might already know this but every Thursday there is a video you can watch to receive money for on Checkout 51. Today there were two. The videos are usually at the very bottom along with rebates for Sam’s club. I watched mine and remembered that one time I didn’t and I missed the rebate. You’ll get $0.25 for each video today. – a reader” Sign up for Checkout 51 here. (I just did this and it totally worked!)

Our garage freezer was almost empty 2 weeks ago. I decided to challenge myself to see if I could slowly fill it up — on our $70/week grocery budget.

This is one way you can save SO much money. Buy ahead when things are on a low, low price and you’ll rarely ever pay full price for anything. Then, use what you already have on hand in the freezer/fridge/pantry as the basis for your meals and freezer cooking.

I did an impromptu freezer cooking day on Tuesday and here’s what I made (well, “freezer cooking day” might be a bit of an overstatement since I actually only spent a little over two hours on this cooking and the clean up! But hey, “freezer cooking day” sounds better so we’ll go with it!)

We had a bunch of peppers and some onions that I had gotten marked down, so I combined them with some sausage I had gotten for $1.99 per package plus a little celery I had left in the fridge to make sausage and peppers in the Crock-pot. I cooked this on low most of the day. We ate half for dinner (served over rice) and I froze the rest for another day.

I had a bunch of apples that I’d gotten marked down at Kroger over the past few weeks and turned them into one of our favorite recipes — Slab Apple Pie! I baked it and we froze it to have on hand for quick desserts in the next two months when hosting guests!

I had enough apples left over to make a bag of Apple Pie Filling (sliced apples with lemon juice and cinnamon/sugar).

I used our favorite Banana Bread recipe and just added some chocolate chips to the batter. My kids love these in their lunches and they also make great snacks. We store them in the freezer and then just pull them out as we need them!

We had some cream cheese that needed to be used up and some blueberries in the freezer, so I searched online for recipe ideas and found this one.

I taste-tested one and it was delicious! I stuck these in a freezer bag and put them in freezer fit quick snacks!

And I did a little bit more freezer cooking on Thursday and Friday, too…

We had frozen cottage cheese and browned sausage I had gotten marked down + pasta sauce in the fridge that needed to be used up and pasta I’d gotten for $0.49/box, so I found a deal on mozzarella cheese and made 3 pans of Ziti. One for dinner that night and two for the freezer.

I found ground turkey marked down to $1.99 per pound, so I bought 2 pounds and browned them with homemade taco seasoning and stuck two bags of taco meat in the freezer.

It makes me so happy to see that our garage freezer is starting to fill up a little bit! I’m going to keep challenging myself to add more deals and freezer meals to our garage freezer every week without spending more than our $70 grocery budget.

We’ll see how long it takes to fill it up! (And of course, we’ll be eating some what’s in this freezer every week, upping the challenge even more!)

I love looking at saving money as a fun challenge! This makes my competitive side come out in a good way AND (in our super lean years) it kept me from feeling trapped!

Instead of saying, “Ugh! This is all the $$ we have to spend!” Change your perspective and say, “How well can we do on this small amount?!”

Have you done any freezer cooking recently? What are your favorite recipes to stick in the freezer? Any suggestions on recipes I should try soon?

I’m currently challenging myself to stick with a $70 grocery budget for our family of five. This includes almost all of our breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners + most household products (toiletries, laundry soap, etc.).

Note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links and we will be compensated if you click through and sign up. Read our disclosure policy here.

One of the things I’m loving about this $70 Grocery Budget Challenge is that it’s inspiring me to look through our cupboards and freezers and find odds and ends of items that I forgot we had.

For instance, I found this half bag of Great Northern Beans last night in one of our cupboards. I had planned that we were going to go out to dinner tonight, but when I saw that bag of beans, I decided to take a raincheck on the eating out plans and make sausage and beans in the Crockpot instead.

I used this recipe for inspiration and cooked the beans for three hours and then chopped up the sausage and mixed it in. I already taste-tested it and it’s super yummy!

Another thing I’m loving about this challenge is that it’s encouraging me to think outside my usual box. As you all know, I drink a gallon of lemon water every day. And that means that I go through a LOT of lemon juice — to the tune of one 32-oz. bottle every 8-10 days.

A few of my readers told me that Dollar Tree has lemon juice… why had I never thought to look there?? Sure enough, Jesse was there last night with Kaitlynn and I had him check and they had 32-oz. bottles for $1. Woot!

I had been buying lemon juice for $2.49 at Kroger, so I was thrilled to discover this much cheaper option! And I realized that this one simple change will save me at least $40+ over the next year!!

You guys! Never stop looking for creative ways to stretch your grocery budget further and save on those things you buy all the time. The savings can really add up!

Dollar Tree Shopping Trip — $2.20

2 bottles lemon juice — $1 each + tax

I ran by Kroger this morning and was excited to find a few deals to round out my grocery spending for this week (I allot $70 per week and my weeks run Saturday to Friday). I didn’t need to buy anything, but I still had $13+ to spend, so I wanted to go ahead and spend it on some snack items and other things that were on a great deal that we could use over the next 1-3 weeks.

(By the way, this is one way that we save a LOT — I try to always be buying ahead when items are on great deals. Even though it means my grocery purchases don’t necessarily match what we’re eating that week, it means that we have a variety of items to base our menus on and it means that we are rarely paying full price for most items!)

And then I let it cool and stuck them into two freezer bags and froze them — and two more dinners are in the freezer!

Our garage freezer was almost empty after we moved and I’m excited to slowly be filling it back up with freezer meals. We now have Chorizo burritos, 2 pans of lasagna, 2 bags of Taco Meat, and 1 bag of sausage/onions/peppers to serve over rice.